What your instance is for

Status: placeholder. This guide will be written before launch.

Pavillion instances aren't generic. The instance that serves one neighborhood is not the instance a regional arts council runs, and neither is the instance a national org runs for its chapters. Federation papers over a lot, but it doesn't paper over the fact that someone has to decide what your instance is — and that decision shapes everything from your signup policy to who other admins trust you with.

Planned scope

• The shapes instances actually take in practice: geographic (a town, a metro, a region), sectoral (a music scene, faith communities, mutual-aid groups), organizational (one nonprofit's chapters), thematic (a single ongoing event series with satellite content)
• Why "a Pavillion instance for everyone" isn't really a shape — it's a description of an unwritten policy you'll end up writing under pressure
• How instance shape interacts with who gets a calendar and federation policy — naming the shape up front makes the downstream calls easier
• Naming and identity: your instance domain is what other admins will recognize you by; pick something that ages
• Saying no when someone asks for a calendar that doesn't fit. How to do it without sounding officious
• Changing the shape later. You can. It's less disruptive than you'd think, more disruptive than you'd hope

A note on the domain.

The note above is a reminder for the writer: your instance domain is identity in federation. You can't change it without breaking every existing follow. Pick deliberately.